On June 30, India achieved another spectacular feat and placed itself in the elite group of only six countries in the world which can launch five satellites simultaneously in geo-stationary orbit. India's Mars mission is fast nearing mars and its moon mission was also a success.

The big question is that a country which can achieve
all this, produce its own nuclear reactors, is a superpower in
information technology why it is importing 85% of its arms
requirements from abroad? This is happening despite the fact that we
have 25000 corer organisation DRDO for research and development in
defence field, 42 state of art defence laboratories, 39 large
ordinance factories, 8 defence PSUs and four ship Naval building
yards.

In other words we have complete infrastructure but
no worthwhile results. Reason is not far to seek. Every arms purchase
deal made abroad is of billions of dollars. Being a hush hush affair
nobody comes to know how much good will money is transferred to the
coffers of ruling party in power, the netas and the babus sitting in
MoD by the arms producing multinational.

In
Focus

This money goes directly to the Swiss bank with
nobody the wiser. The country is bled white and we get yesterday's
arms at today’s cost. It is really good that the new Government at centre led by Narendra Modi is talking about enhancing arms production in India and
even exporting them. This is very much possible in India with its
already existing defence production infrastructure, skilled man power
and innovative Indian mind.

We must open this sector to private firms also and
allow direct FDI even upto 100%. This will make India a power in real
sense.100% FDI may be necessary in those cases where the foreign firm
is prepared to transfer us the cutting edge technology and produce
and export arms from India only. This way we will get more jobs in
the country and expertise.

We should take the cue from China which was a major
arms importer till 2006 but now is the fourth largest exporter of
arms. Another reason why we should be not only an arms producer but
also an exporter is the fact we can then carry out an arms diplomacy.

The developing countries and the SAARC countries to
which we export arms get dependent on us because whether they like it
or not only we will be able to provide them with spares. Besides we
can give then long term loans for purchase of arms.

India with cheap
and skilled labour can produce state of art arms with comparatively
low cost at affordable price. We must start work on this project
immediately and improve work culture of our defence PSUs and assets.
There is no time to waste.

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